NRA’s LaPierre: It’s time to get lower-court vacancies filled

ATLANTA — Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, told NRA members on Saturday it’s time for the dozens of vacancies on federal courts to get filled and it’s up to them to back President Trump long enough to appoint the new lower-court judges and reshape the U.S. Supreme Court “forever.”

“When Obama said he wanted to transform America, he did just that,” Mr. LaPierre said at the NRA’s annual meeting of members.

Mr. LaPierre said former President Obama appointed 331 judges to federal courts and flipped the ideological balance on 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals.

“This lower courts… are incredibly important,” he said. “They hear more than 400,000 cases a year. They are where future Supreme Court nominees are found. They are the first line of judicial defense of all of our liberties.”

He said there are currently 127 vacancies on federal courts.

“We are grateful for Judge Gorsuch, and it’s time now for a hundred more conservative, pro-Second Amendment judges on benches throughout this country,” he said.

Mr. LaPierre also said it’s time for Supreme Court Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, generally seen as part of the court’s liberal-leaning wing, “to go.”

“Thank God President Trump got elected and put Judge Gorsuch on the bench,” he said.

“It’s our job to back this president long enough to completely repopulate the federal judiciary and change the United States Supreme Court forever,” he said.